With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Mark Golitko and colleagues will conduct one field season of excavation and survey targeted at reconstructing mid-Holocene (~7000-3000 BP) landscape, environment, settlement patterning, subsistence, and exchange networks near Aitape, northern Papua New Guinea (PNG). The project brings together American, Australian, and New Guinean experts in Pacific prehistory, paleo-environment, and paleo-tsunami research.
The north coast presents considerable environmental challenges to human survival. For instance, a massive tsunami in 1998 wiped out villages along Sissano Lagoon, and similar events are believed to occur several times per century. The north coast of PNG is also heavily impacted by the ENSO cycle, which can cause severe subsistence stress resulting from alternating cycles of heavy rainfall and drought. This region is among the most linguistically and biologically diverse places on earth, suggesting a history of inter-community isolation, yet in recent history, coastal communities are linked into extensive social networks through which goods, people, and ideas travel. These social connections presently serve in part as a form of insurance in the face of environmentally driven risk. Thus, in addition to informing scientists about the past, the research has the potential to provide insight into successful strategies to mitigate the detrimental effects of extreme environmental events.
The place of the north coast of PNG in Pacific prehistory is controversial and poorly understood due to a relative paucity of research conducted there. In one view, the north coast was largely uninhabited and isolated from Island Melanesia prior to the disappearance of Lapita style pottery after ~2000 BP, resulting in significant linguistic, genetic, and cultural differences between people living on the mainland and off-shore islands. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the introduction of highland PNG domesticates during the mid-Holocene period increased population levels on the coast to such a level that new settlers were excluded from the region. From another perspective, the north coast may have served as a significant barrier to human movement and interaction only prior to the stabilization of world sea-levels and formation of productive alluvial plains after ~6000 BP. Settlement on these alluvial plains, in conjunction with an upswing in ENSO frequency after ~7000 BP may have increased the degree of social interaction as populations on the north coast became increasingly exposed to environmental risk. Thereafter, the north coast formed the heart of an interaction sphere through which people, goods, and ideas freely moved.
To test these alternative hypotheses regarding north coast prehistory, excavations will be conducted at two sites located on the reconstructed mid-Holocene shoreline inland from the modern town of Aitape - Paniri Creek, where human remains dating to the mid-Holocene were previously recovered in association with potential paleo-tsunami deposits, and Kobom/NGRP25, where obsidian was collected during prior survey work. Survey and coring at river-cuts and garden clearings elsewhere along the mid-Holocene shoreline will provide a broader regional perspective on paleo-environment. Excavation and survey will target paleo-environmental indicators (pollen, phytoliths, charcoal), datable materials, and obsidian for sourcing analysis.
The project will provide significant new information about prehistory on the north coast that will address the origins of human diversity in the Pacific. The study will examine long-term human adaptive responses to climate change and sea-level rise, and therefore contribute to modern policy debate in PNG and elsewhere regarding global warming, sea-level rise, and effective response to environmental risk. Involvement by local archaeologists and students will contribute to archaeological training in PNG.
